“I look forward to working with residents and fellows and strengthening the Medical Center as a place medical students of all cultures and backgrounds choose to stay and establish their careers.”

Adrienne Morgan, Ph.D., has been tapped to fill a newly-created role that will support the Medical Center’s strategic goal to build a more inclusive and welcoming culture across the organization, and develop an increasingly diverse cadre of clinicians, scientists and educators. As assistant dean for Medical Education Diversity and Inclusion, Morgan will be a resource to URMC residents, fellows, and faculty, and help identify and address challenges to recruiting and retaining under-represented groups to URMC’s 84 residency programs and fellowship programs.

Morgan will report to URMC senior associate dean for Inclusion and Cultural Development Linda Chaudron, M.D., M.S., and work closely with David Lambert, M.D., senior associate dean for Medical Student Education, and Diane Hartmann, M.D., senior associate dean for Graduate Medical Education. She begins the role this month pending Board of Trustees approval.

“Historically, like many other academic medical centers across the country, our individual residency and fellowship programs have often functioned in isolation, without sharing a cohesion and symmetry in their approaches to diversity and inclusivity,” said Chaudron. “The addition of this role represents a pivotal step toward developing an infrastructure that will better respond to needs in this area across the Medical Center with continuity and consistency.”

Hartmann noted that Morgan is “the perfect ambassador for the position because of her wealth of experience working with medical students from all backgrounds, and her exceptional ability to forge connections across the medical education continuum.”

For more than 16 years, Morgan has been a familiar face to a succession of future physicians while serving as senior director of the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Center for Advocacy, Community Health, Education and Diversity (CACHED) and assistant professor in the division of Medical Humanities and Bioethics. In addition to working on the school’s admissions committee, she oversees affinity groups and coordinates international internships, community outreach opportunities, research experiences, and the fourth-year visiting clerkships for potential matching residents. She also leads community-based “pipeline” programs that spark local minority elementary and high school students toward science careers while giving SMD students a chance to mentor younger students.

A member of the SMD’s diversity theme committee, Morgan will continue her work with the CACHED office—which won a UR Presidential Diversity Award in 2012 under her direction—in tandem with her new position.

“Dr. Morgan has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion within our medical degree program,” said Lambert. “I share in the sentiment of our students and faculty, who are proud and thrilled that she will now be bringing her talents and ideas to benefit our residency and fellowship programs.”

Morgan said she sees her new position as a natural extension of her diversity work at the medical school.

“This is an exciting time to be part of diversity initiatives at URMC because there is tremendous leadership support to making positive changes,” she said. “I look forward to working with residents and fellows and building connections to strengthen the Medical Center as a place of choice for medical students of all cultures and backgrounds, a place where they will want to grow as faculty and establish their careers.”

A native of Madison, Wisconsin, Morgan earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed a graduate certificate at Cornell University in Industrial and Labor Relations. She earned a master’s degree in Cross-Disciplinary Professional Studies from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Her dissertation examined the lived experiences of U.S. born black males attending predominately white medical schools. She teaches a popular medical humanities seminar focusing on anti-racism, and also co-teaches a public health community engagement course on the River Campus.

In addition to the 2012 UR Presidential Diversity Award, she received the Urban League of Rochester’s Outstanding Educator of the Year Award in 2014, the Susan B. Anthony Institute’s Dissertation Award in 2013, the Area Colleges Continuing Education Association’s Outstanding Adult Student Award in 2010, and the Alpha Omega Alpha, Zeta Chapter, Class of 2005 Recognition Award.

She is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Committee on Diversity Affairs, the Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY) Committee on Diversity and Minority Affairs, and the National Association of Minority Medical Educators (NAMME).